Growth is not always determined by sales, but by other aspects as well. For example, if you are gaining more social media followers, collecting more email addresses, and getting more comments on your blog, your business is still growing, just in different ways.
Growth hacking strategies are usually based on creative ideas rather than traditional marketing methods. They might involve content marketing, steep discounts, major incentives, social media, and similar tactics.
Here are some growth hacking strategies that you can start today.
1. Find social media platforms your competitors aren’t using
You might not be able to come out on top on larger social media networks if you’re in a competitive field. Try to find smaller social media networks like Profit.ly for stock traders or The Dots for creatives.
If you can get more people to follow you on social media than your competitors, you’ll be able to reach your target audience more easily. You can also direct traffic from your website to your social media platforms, and vice versa, which will create opportunities to better engage with your audience.
2. Partner with another company to share audiences
If you are looking to grow your audience, partnering with another entrepreneur who has a similar sized audience can be very beneficial. By working together, you will be able to reach a larger audience than you would if you were working alone.
Do not seek out a business that is in direct competition with your own, rather find one that will work well with yours.
Partnering with other businesses and collaborating with them is one of the best growth hacking techniques, as it creates a lot of publicity. Many brands have realized that co-marketing and product partnerships are an effective growth marketing strategy.
It can create a lot of social media attention and bring more visitors to your website from search engines. If you get media coverage from this, it can improve how visible your products and services are to people all around the world.
Some partnerships with decent ROIs have been those that created new products based on a theme.
3. Give something away for free
You can increase participation in your social media giveaway by advertising it in as many places as possible, and offering rewards for people who share it with their friends.
Products with your company’s logo and name on them make great gifts and are useful to the recipient.
Referring to a customer that is pleased with your brand and recommends it to others is positive word of mouth. This will help increase your brand awareness as well as maintain customer loyalty. A satisfied customer not only becomes a promoter for your brand, but also provides referrals and leads. Consequently, this improves customers’ perceptions of your brand.
4. Conduct constant A/B testing
I recommend testing everything, but start with the most conversion-heavy areas of your website:
- Landing pages
- Home page
- End of blog posts
- Sales pages
- Contact pages
Concentrate on one element of each page in turn so you don’t introduce bias to your results. If you change more than one thing, you won’t be able to tell which had an effect on the outcome.
Crazy Egg can help you to improve your website by letting you know how users interact with it. This information can then be used to set up A/B tests, which are a way of comparing two versions of something in order to see which one is more effective.
5. Change up your landing page layout
If you are not getting the desired results from your landing page, it may be time to start from scratch. This is especially the case if you have already tried everything through A/B testing and have not seen an improvement.
Play around with the landing page until it is as convincing as possible. This means that the customer should be able to immediately see what they will get out of converting.
If you want to appeal to a younger audience that is into video games, you can make your landing page more attractive by incorporating game elements into it.
6. Invite your audience to email you
I have had success doing this a few times. Most email marketing advice says not to do this, but I invite my entire email list to email me back with any questions, comments, or answers to a question I have asked.
You can learn interesting information from your audience by starting conversations with them and keeping the lines of communication open.
7. Attend small, local events
A true growth hacker is never afraid to explore any and all potential avenues that could lead to success, even if it means going outside of the digital world.
You should consider attending small, niche-related events, whether they are in your area or out of town. If you reserve a booth for your business, you will be able to meet people face-to-face and shake their hands. This will make you a more attractive solution to them than a faceless company.
About a third of all new businesses don’t last two years, so it’s important for entrepreneurs to arm themselves with the knowledge they need to succeed by attending startup events.
8. Get interactive
You should create some content for yourself.
There are now many sites where you can hire someone to create interactive content for you. This includes Upwork and Fiverr. You should read reviews and interview potential hires before making your decision.
9. Issue a challenge
A great way to create a positive relationship with your audience and to boost your credibility is to issue a challenge to your audience. It could be related to a personal growth goal, a charitable cause, or a creative endeavor.
The key is to make it something that not everyone has access to. Invite people to apply to join your challenge.
If you want to amplify your voice, get involved in something you care about. This will inspire others to contribute to the same cause, and help the charity in the process.
10. Broadcast your personality
If you have a strong personality, you can use it to help grow your brand. Becoming the face of your brand can help inspire and motivate others. When growth hacking, figure out what you can do for others before asking for a sale or conversion.
11. Offer a freemium option
First offer something free. Then, if people like what they see, they can upgrade to the paid model If you own a software or SaaS company, you might want to consider developing a freemium model. This could work well for apps of all types.
Retaining customers is easier than acquiring customers. That’s why the freemium model works well. You already have potential customers interested. You just have to convince them that they want the paid version of your product.
12. Build a free, useful tool
As a growth marketer, I have realized the amazing benefits of free tools. For example, Ubersuggest generates a lot of traffic.
13. Create a pre-launch email list
Build your email list to reach your audience more effectively and create pre-launch hype for any product or event.
This will also allow you to get customers before you even launch. Try to build up hype for a few weeks and get your audience excited for your launch.
For creating email lists, MailChimp is a good choice as it allows you to send emails out effectively.
14. Launch on product hunt or similar platforms
Creating a launch on Product Hunt is an important task for any startup. Each week, there are dozens of new startups launching, so it’s a great way to reach new audiences.
If you want to get your business exposed to a global audience, Product Hunt is the market leader. It’s your “golden ticket” to get attention from lots of innovators and journalists. You may also get feedback and ideas for new opportunities.
15. Leverage referral marketing
If you want to convert a lead quickly, it’s best to get a referral from a friend, family member, or industry influencer. Referral customers have a lower CPA, so you can save money on marketing costs.
Referral programs result in better customer retention rates, which in turn leads to a 16% higher lifetime value for those customers. Additionally, sales experts who have referral programs earn four to six times more than those who don’t.
Uber’s initial business model was based on referral marketing, which gave users a $5 credit for every new user that signed up with their referral code. The success of this model led to it being replicated by other ride-sharing apps.
16. Leverage adjacent markets
Identifying adjacent markets is an excellent way to grow sales. It’s often confused with ‘white space opportunity.’ However, by adjacent, I mean markets that are close in proximity to what you do.
Adjacent markets are markets that are next to or nearby your own market. The key to success in these markets is to export your skills and abilities, rather than products and services. This means taking your core competencies and using them to create new value for new customers.
A few factors to consider before entering any new market are the level of competition, the size of the market opportunity, and any legal barriers. Additionally, consider your existing skills and channels.
17. Social media growth hacking: Build a community around your brand
You can use social media to promote your business, get feedback from customers, and interact with industry leaders.
You can’t just post willy-nilly and expect to gain a following. You have to be strategic about your social media activity and make sure it’s consistent with your overall business goals.
One way to use social media to grow your business is to create a Facebook group related to your brand. This will give your audience a place to engage with your brand.
18. Follow your biggest competitors
Competition can take many different forms, but it is always present. Once you have identified your competitors, it is important to show why your company has an advantage in the respective market. As an entrepreneur, you should not only focus on your business venture, but also be aware of the changes taking place in your competitive landscape. This will allow your business to quickly adapt to new situations and take advantage of its strengths.
Many businesses fail because they try to copy their competition instead of coming up with their own plan. This usually leads to poor results.
19. Create an aggressive content marketing strategy
Customer feedback is extremely important for businesses. It helps them resolve complaints and queries faster, as well as handle customer objections effectively.
An effective growth marketing strategy will include an aggressive content marketing strategy to help you focus on customer feedback and market your product effectively.
With a modest budget, create content that will show your audience the value of your product.
20. Do guest posting
However, it is not an easy task to identify the most reliable and consistent guest posting services. There are many guest posting services that can help build a connection. However, it can be difficult to identify the most reliable and consistent ones. Almost all of them have their own websites up and running.
Service providers that offer links to your website from high-quality organic content can help improve your website’s search engine rankings.
Blogging on someone else’s website is a great way to get more website traffic and reach new audiences.
21. Work with influencers
When building a brand, working with well-known influencers is a powerful way to reach a wider audience. It’s worth mentioning that influencers with over 50,000+ followers are most impactful.
Working with influencers is a great way for entrepreneurs to promote their products and services. By sharing the latest news with influencers, entrepreneurs can reach a larger audience and potential customers.
22. Cash the trends
If you want your business to be successful, it is important to stay up-to-date with the latest industry trends. This can be difficult to do when you have to juggle many different responsibilities, such as customer service, budgeting, marketing, sales, and product development. However, if you make an effort to stay informed, it will pay off in the long run.
If you can identify new trends early, you can make your campaigns more profitable or rework your business plans to take advantage of new trends as they start.
23. Use HARO for press opportunities
One of the best ways to grow your business is by considering Helping A Reporter Out (HARO) as a platform where you can display your expertise. While it is not a brand-building tool, it is a great place to read various requests by journalists that may or may not be relevant to your domain.
It can be well worth the time investment if done correctly.
Best growth hacking examples
There is no doubt that Facebook is the most favorite social media platform. It has more than 2 billion users and it has become a part of our everyday lives.
PayPal
If you’ve ever thought that giving away money could help your organization grow, you’re not alone. Plenty of companies have used this strategy to great effect, and PayPal is a perfect example.
They wanted to grow their user base, so they started using a referral program. They gave users rewards for referring new users, using PayPal’s referral program as an example.
Dollar Shave Club
The Dollar Shave Club is a good example of this.
HubSpot Academy
Hubspot Academy was successful in increasing the number of certifications per student to 1.3 in 2016 with the help of growth marketer Eric Peters.
Growth hacking is not to be confused with conversion marketing or lead generation. It is, in fact, quite different.
A growth hacker is focused on causing exponential growth in a short period of time and doesn’t worry about the smaller details.
Only you know what’s best for your particular business.